


the path itself, it changes

by ziparumpazoo



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Original Female Characters - Freeform, Original Male Characters - Freeform, Season 5 Spoilers, heavy-handed parallels, post season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 15:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8758495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziparumpazoo/pseuds/ziparumpazoo
Summary: It takes a weekend away, time and space to figure things out, but Vic concedes that maybe the universe is trying to tell her something.





	

In retrospect, she’s glad she didn’t tell Eamon when she saw him at the hospital. Part of it was that look on his face; the post-traumatic wild-eyed panic that reminded her of the horse they’d found dragging that body last year, like he couldn’t wait to cut his ties with Absaroka County, and its Sheriff’s department. Desperate to get rid of all the baggage that came with.

But mostly it was because Vic knew she wasn’t ready. It’d taken her long enough to come around to the idea that she could even be pregnant, let alone say the word out loud once she’d known for sure. And while she knew Eamon had liked her, he’d also make it clear that he wasn’t looking for anything more, not until she’d got her priorities straight and figured out what (or who, he’d implied) she really wanted. As much as that had stung at the time, he’d been right. She’d been drifting on automatic since the divorce, reacting to events as they happened and losing herself in the job while letting her personal obligations slide because it was easier to worry about everybody else’s problems than to deal with her own.

Besides, one divorce was enough to know you don’t get together for the wrong reasons. It never sticks.

Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. It’s early and there’s still too much uncertainty. She compartmentalizes the test results, switches up her coffee with tea, and hopes nobody notices. (Ruby might, but then nothing that goes on in that office escapes her.) Walt tells her in passing that he wouldn't blame her for wanting something safer. She hesitates, wondering if he suspects, then defers with a “Maybe someday.”

Not saying anything right now doesn’t mean not saying anything ever. She’s afraid of the moment when she does. Everything will change.

* 

Vic’s blindsided twice in the same hour: the trial and Travis.

Travis and the trial, and it’s all she can do to keep breathing between the well-intentioned and the intentionally harmful. When Walt sits with her and asks how she’s doing after her testimony, her stomach clenches and she can’t decide if it’s just the ever-persistent nausea or the relief at finding a sympathetic ear. A glance at the newspaper folded in her lap and its claims of impropriety remind her that there are some boundaries that need to be maintained, if only for perception’s sake right now. This isn’t the time or place. There’s been too much said and not said between them for this to be an easy conversation.

She finds herself exhausted but sleep doesn’t come easy. She’s used to having threats made against her; it’s the nature of the job, though it’s rare that any of them warrant being taken seriously. Most are made in the heat of the moment during an arrest, or by drunks she’s chauffeuring to the jail to sleep it off.

Threats from Chance Gilbert’s family are something completely different. She’s experienced their level of fucked-up extremely close and personal. Suddenly, the motor home that had seemed like a little bit of freedom feels thin and fragile. She turns on every light in the trailer and winces as the battery dims at the load before she remembers the switch to flip over to street power. For the first time, she misses the sturdy two-story she and Sean had rented when they’d moved to Durant.

She tries tidying up in lieu of sleep; something to keep her from staring out the windows and pausing at every vehicle that slows down on the highway. The space is small and it doesn’t take long. Clothes she wore at the trial hung back up, dishes emptied from the sink. The babysitting coupon goes into a drawer behind the silverware; out of sight from visitors and out of mind for the moment.

Kind of like that night with Travis she’d been ignoring.

* 

Going to retrieve the evidence that can put Chance Gilbert on death row is the first thing she’s done in a long time that feels entirely in her control. Walt’s going to be livid when he finds out, but he wasn’t the one beaten almost senseless. He’s not the one who still sleeps with a light on most nights and his gun by his pillow.

It was reckless to go alone. That it could have been a trap doesn’t even register until she’s on her hands and knees in the mud of the riverbank and trying not to drown.

She’s late returning Ferg’s car. He’s not at the station and the keys to the Charger are gone, so she leaves his keychain in his desk drawer with a note to tell him the tank is full. It had taken the better part of an hour for her hands to stop shaking as she’d driven aimlessly up one back road and down the next, trying to put some distance between herself and the Gilbert place. 

It’s probably better that nobody’s around. Her clothes are still damp and she’d not sure she can stand up straight enough to take a deep breath right now if she had to fake it. 

Climbing into her own truck is a chore, but at least the seats are heated. She hits the switch, locks the doors, and just lets the big engine idle for a few minutes as the warmth seeps into her abused muscles. She tries not to think of anything else except the plastic-wrapped gun in the duffle bag on the other seat, and how’s she’s going to present the evidence to the DA tomorrow morning. She tries not to think about how much of a close call she’d just had. Or how can she keep doing the kind of job now where a routine traffic stop could end with her getting shot at, or Walt finding another one of his deputies dead in a river?

And she most emphatically does not to think about the child she’s carrying and what kind of damage might have just been done.

At least not until she runs into Travis again.

And then it’s all she thinks about until she finally succumbs to exhaustion.

Travis is waiting for her in the morning, sitting at her picnic table, keys in hand. She doesn’t even argue about him driving except to insist the stop at the courthouse is first because she doesn’t want to chance losing the evidence she took such a stupid risk to get. She leans her head against the door pillar and keeps her eyes closed so she can ignore the way Travis keeps looking over at her, his forehead bunched with concern. She wraps an arm across her stomach. For the first time in weeks, the churning in her gut is almost a relief. 

* 

“Deputy!” 

Vic slows and turns, holds up a hand to Travis to signal that she’ll catch up. 

The voice is familiar, though it takes her a moment to equate it with the trembling woman they’d questioned about her husband’s death a few weeks back. “Mrs. Parr.”

“Melissa, please.” She smiles, a bit tentative, but she’s looking better than the last time Vic saw her. She’s got some colour in her cheeks from the jog across the parking lot and the dullness is gone from her eyes. “Listen, I just wanted to apologize.” She blushes now in earnest. “At the station. Not my finest moment.” 

“Don't worry about it. Not the first time it’s happened. Getting puked on kind of comes with the job.” She tries to change the subject and put the woman at ease. “How’s Olivia doing?” 

Melissa’s smile falters a little. “She’s doing good-” she shakes her head. “Sorry. My therapist says I need to remind myself that it's okay not to come off looking like the perfect little family. Hard to break behaviour that ingrained, you know?” The smile is back, but it's muted, a little wry. “Olivia’s having a hard time. She’s a smart girl and she knows what she did and how wrong it was, even if she was trying to protect me.” She glances back over her shoulder at the hospital building and her shoulders drop. “Actually, she’s not doing well at all. Her counsellor and I agreed that in-patient treatment was best right now. I hate it. It feels like I just keep failing her.” She shrugs and her eyes are damp. “But you do what’s best for your child in the long run, even if it hurts, right?” 

Vic clears her throat, unsure how it got so tight. “Right.” She feels suddenly exposed. She pulls at her shirtsleeve to hide the bandaide from the lab work. 

*

Back in Philadelphia, as in most reasonably sized law enforcement organizations, it was common practice to make counseling available after a traumatic incident. All but enforced. Absaroka county was not large enough to have it’s own counseling department, but it did have a service bundled into its benefits package. Walt had tried to get her to talk about how she was dealing with the incident at the Gilbert place in his own awkward way, but not until later when it became evident that it was affecting the job. She’d still been too raw and angry at the time, and despite his best efforts, she’d deflected with a series of fencing matches over his technological ineptitude, and he’d finally dropped the subject. When it came to passive-aggressive avoidance, she’d had a lot of practice even before the divorce. 

Ruby had slid a business card with a phone number and a website across Vic’s desk just before leaving for the day, not long after Vic had decided to come back to work. Her wrists had still been raw and her bruises still fresh, but she’d found it easier to tough out the headaches when she had something to do that wasn't sitting at home feeling like a victim. 

“I checked with the county benefits administrator. The insurance company doesn’t report who uses the service, just the number of employees on the plan who have during the quarter.”

Vic had glanced up. Ferg was already gone for the day and Walt’s door was closed. “That bad, huh?” 

“Military veterans are not the only ones who suffer from post-traumatic stress.” Ruby’s eyes were gentle but the hand she’d laid on Vic’s shoulder was firm enough to underscore her concern. “I don’t think I need to ask if you’re sleeping okay.”

She’d made the call because it was Ruby who’d suggested it; the concern was genuine and Ruby didn’t have any investment other than friendship. The service had matched her up with a counsellor over in Sheridan, far enough away to be anonymous, but close enough that she’d be able to make it to appointments without missing too much work. Then the tragedy with Branch had hit the department and she’d had to cancel. There hadn’t seemed as much time, or importance to make the time after that. With Sean gone, she didn’t have to worry about hurting anyone when she woke up thrashing around from a nightmare, and work was too busy during the day to think of much else. She’d never bothered to reschedule. 

The service had a website with lists of links to self-help articles. She’d clicked once on her phone out of curiosity, but the page’s introduction had seemed too bright and cheery for a list of self-care tips. She’d closed the tab and deleted it from her browser history. In retrospect, she’s willing to place bets that liquor and one-night stands were probably not in the top-ten list. It had just felt good to be wanted, no strings, no baggage for once. 

The door to Walt’s office closes, and after a moment while she waits to be sure he’s not coming back out, she picks up the picture that's been hidden in plain sight on her desk blotter. There’s a flutter of wings inside her rib cage, even though she’s looked at the small photo often enough that the corners are starting to dog-ear. 

She checks the patient name in the top corner yet again to confirm there’s no mistake, as if she hadn’t heard the staccato of a heartbeat with her own ears. 

_“You need to start looking after yourself.”_

As much as she’s trying to avoid it, Travis’ concern is also genuine. And not entirely misplaced. 

It’s late and her ribs are still sore. She’d like nothing more than to settle into a hot bath with a cold beer, but neither are in her near future. Instead there’s the tiny motor home with its closet-sized shower and flimsy locks, though it makes up for its shortfalls by being wholly and entirely hers. As she grabs her keys and wallet from the desk drawer she sees the business card with the counseling service’s number on it. She considers it a moment, but tosses it back in the drawer. She’s been kicking herself enough for her own carelessness; she doesn’t need to pay somebody to help her with that.

Vic gathers gathers up the rest of her things and leaves before something else can come up and keep her at the office any later. 

*

She’s scheduled for a recertification course at the law enforcement academy down in Douglas. It’s a welcome three day vacation from the routine, even if the majority of the time in class is spent watching the clock and counting the minutes until she can escape on break.

She’d read a statistic somewhere that only something around twelve percent of law enforcement officers are women; out here away from the big city departments with their affirmative action policies, the percentage is a lot lower. She’s the only one is this particular class, and normally it’s not something that bothers her; she’s got four brothers and she knows how to play the ‘who’s cojones are bigger’ game. She packs extra granola bars in her bag because any sort of weakness is not something she can afford to show with this group and she’s finding her stomach settles easier when it’s not empty.

She scores near perfect on the firing range and texts a picture of her results to Ferg, friendly competition just to keep him on his toes. 

Vic hadn’t planned on staying longer, but the course finishes early on Friday and the weather feels too nice to drive straight home. She finds herself turning south on I-25 toward Cheyenne instead and a weight lifts from her shoulders. She feels a certain giddiness in every breath. It would be easy to take the bypass and just keep driving south and away from Durant. Away from having to make any sort of decisions. She’s got the weekend off; nobody would notice until she was long gone. 

She could ditch the truck at the airport and hop a plane back to Philly, take some time to get her shit together and figure this all out. And while there really isn’t anything preventing her from moving back, not with Gorski gone for good and her divorce finalized, the overwhelming concern she’d get from family would be far too intimidating. They’ll have questions she doesn’t have answers to. Besides, she’s gotten used the freedom from their tight-knit scrutiny and the old-neighbourhood notoriety of the Moretti name. For the first time in her life, here in Wyoming, her mistakes are hers to own. 

She sets the cruise control just over the speed limit and settles back in her seat as the truck tires churn through the miles. The gentle roll of the high plains stretches out in front of her, golden in the late afternoon sun, and full of room to let her mind wander.

*

The sun is setting when she hits the outskirts of Cheyenne. She manages to find a room at the Super 8 on an off-season special that doesn’t break her budget and sends Travis a text. 

_“In Cheyenne for the weekend. Don’t panic. Just need some time to think.”_

She didn’t have to let him know where she was. She doesn’t owe him anything. She’s not committed to him in any way, and heck, the kid might not even be his. And yet...he’s never been anything but friendly and concerned, even before they’d slept together. She can’t help but wonder if they’d met under different circumstances, without arrest warrants and innuendo and Branch’s breakdown, if maybe they’d have become friends, something she’s a little short on right about now. 

Her phone pings with an incoming text as she’s filling the tub for a bath. 

Travis. 

_“K. Take care of yourself. Be safe.”_  

She nods an acknowledgement as she puts the phone down on the counter, even though he can’t see. She blinks hard and blames the way her throat feels tight on the dry hotel air. 

*

Her dreams are restless, more so than usual. She drifts between sleep and flashes of dark basements and falling bodies, heavy and limp as they hit the ground. It’s only her protesting bladder that wakes her enough to break the cycle.

She lies tangled in sweaty sheets and pre-dawn light listening to the Doppler effect of semi trucks and trailers shrieking past on the highway, and considers if all this would be simpler if she decided not to have the baby.

It’s not an unreasonable thought; she’s single, married to an all-consuming shift-work job with a salary that barely covers her own expenses, let alone support a child. But she was raised in a large Italian Catholic family and, as much misery as she’s encountered on domestic disturbance calls reinforces her belief that a woman’s right to her own freedoms should be an absolute, it’s hard to fight one’s upbringing. There’s been enough latent guilt drilled into her over the years that she dismisses the thought.

Besides, she’s not thirty anymore and the idea of growing older alone, leaving nothing of herself behind scares her as much as the idea of starting over with somebody new right now. She reaches over to the nightstand to check the time on her phone and when the backlight blinks on her eye catches the small photo sitting beside it. She picks it up and studies the low contrast image. The small white shape is no bigger than the end of her pinkie finger, but already it's almost recognizable as a tiny human.

She falls asleep, deep and dreamless this time, with the photo in one hand and the fingertips of her other resting against her stomach. The question of not having the baby is academic; her heart had already been made up even before she’d been certain she was pregnant.

It's the question of how she’s going to make this work that troubles her.

*

She’s been to Cheyenne before, but it’s always been on the way to somewhere else. This time with no goal in mind, she plays tourist for the day, trading in her uniform shirt and badge for a sundress and daypack. She spends the morning wandering a historic downtown that reminds her of a taller, grown-up version of Durant. At lunch she picks up a rack card sitting beside the register in some western-themed cafe that paints an enticing picture of the Botanic Gardens, a little greenery in an otherwise dry and desolate state.

The garden’s play space is not somewhere she’d normally seek out; the noise level in most restaurants with play areas set her teeth on edge, but the shady bench on the edge of the Children’s Village with its kid-sized gardens and shallow ponds had called to her. She takes the lid off the take-out cup of tea to let it cool and lets her gaze wander to where a silver-haired, deeply-tanned woman wearing a shirt with the word ‘volunteer’ printed front and back is crouched down near a pool and chatting with a pair of pre-schoolers. Vic can just hear snatches of conversation about crayfish and claws as they cluster around the contents of a dipnet that one of the kids is holding. Parents, mothers mostly, but there’s a few older adults that look like they could be grandparents, mill about amongst children engrossed in the hands-on garden displays, some involved in exploring with their kids, others engaged in wrangling unruly offspring and making sure they didn’t destroy the place. It occurs to her that that there is a whole other world out here beyond the sheriff’s office and the badge, one she hasn’t been a part of in a long while.

When they’d first been married, Sean would drag her along to work functions and then leave her at the mercy of the other wives. Listening to them talk about how Wyoming was just a career step for their husbands while they waited on their next big transfer to Qatar, going on as if it were they who were the ones directly responsible for his success. Vic had never had anything to add when the discussion turned to which energy company had the best expat compound in Doha, or how soon was too soon before trying for a baby once they’d arrived and were assigned a residence. (because who in their right mind would want to raise children in this forgotten wasteland of a state? Really?) She’s intimate with criminal code and investigative procedure, not international real-estate and corporate spouse culture. After the third or fourth company event, Vic had started arranging the department’s schedule so she always seemed to be the one pulling the evening shift whenever the Newett invitations showed up in the calendar. Sean had caught on, of course, and it had become just one more thing about her job for him to disapprove of.

Sitting on the bench off to the side of the garden by herself, she feels almost like that interloper again, unwelcome at the party because she could not speak the shibboleth.

“Hey.”

She turns. A boy has parked himself at the other end of the bench. She doesn’t have enough experience with kids to guess with any accuracy, but she figures he’s somewhere in the lower end of elementary school-aged. She returns the greeting in kind. “Hey yourself.”

“You come here often?” Vic almost laughs out loud at the absurdity of the line she’d normally associate with drunken men and cheap bars coming out of the kid’s mouth, all high-pitched and innocent. She sips her tea to buy herself a moment to regain her composure. The boy stares at her, his face naked with curiosity.

“Um, no actually. This is the first time I’ve been here.”

The boy nods as if this is important information. He slouches back into the bench and folds his hands in his lap. He’s short enough that his feet dangle over the edge, sneaker toes barely scraping the dirt as his legs gently swing. She’s tempted to ask him the same, but mindful that the kid seems to be currently unattended by an adult, she settles on something a little less creepy. “Is your mom around?”

The boy tilts his chin to another bench over by the pond with the water screw display. There’s a women with a baby on her lap and a blanket draped over her shoulder watching them. “Over there. Feeding my sister.” He sounds bored, as if his days revolve around waiting on his sister. He waves and the woman waves back, apparently satisfied that Vic isn’t a threat. “You have kids running around here?”

Vic turns. The boy is watching her again. It takes her a moment to answer, but he waits on her. “Uh, no. I don’t have kids. Yet.” The last word comes out quietly, intended only for herself, but the boy picks up on it anyhow.

“You gonna?” He says it matter-of-factly. He could be asking about the weather or enquiring about what’s for supper.

She almost chokes at his boldness. “Have kids?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs as if these kinds of conversations are commonplace. And who knows, maybe in his circles, they are?

She hesitates, then decides there’s no harm. “Yeah, I am.” A certain thrill runs through her as she considers this is the first time she’s actually told anybody her secret, even if it is a pint-sized stranger. “Soon.”

“You should bring them here. Like maybe like next week?”

“Not that soon.” She covers a smile behind the take-out cup. “But I might just do that. It seems like a fun place.”

He turns to watch his mother again. She’s busy arranging the baby in a stroller. “I don’t think babies like it here. My sister doesn’t. She just cries. Like all the time.” As if realizing he’s failing his sales pitch, he adds. “I like the ponds though.”

“Nathan!” The boy looks up to his mother approaching with the stroller and looking harried. “Time to go, we need to stop at the washroom and change your sister before we leave.” The woman turns to Vic. “Sorry. He probably talked your ear off.”

Vic shakes her head and waves a hand. “No, don’t worry about it. He was good company.”

As the boy pulls himself off the bench, dragging his feet behind his mother, he turns to Vic once more and lowers his voice. “One day I hope she changes her into a cat. That would be really cool.”

Vic bites her lip, not quite sure she’s ready for this level of surreal. “Nice chatting with you Nathan.”

It’s odd, Vic thinks as she watches them retreat, neither Nathan, nor his mother seemed to notice that she doesn’t really belong here. She’s not sure if she’d managed to blend in well enough because she’d come of her own accord, unlike those company events she’d always resisted, or if they’d recognized something in her that she herself can’t yet see.

She lingers a bit longer, enjoying the unhurried nature of the gardens before gathering her day pack and pitching what’s left of the tea, wondering if she’s just been handed a password of sorts.

*

Vic breaks up the monotony of the drive back to Durant with a few stops to stretch her legs where she can. She wanders around the pathways at a rest stop just outside of Powder Junction, an impossible oasis of green in the otherwise parched-looking Powder River basin. She stops to read a series of tourist signs displaying the history of agriculture in the region. There’s a WYDOT sign proclaiming the patch of grassland beside the parking loop as the ‘livestock exercise area’, which makes her shake her head at the mental image of somebody leading a pet cow around around on a leash.

A tan one-ton pickup with a horse trailer rumbles past her toward the on-ramp, kicking up a cloud of dust and silencing the cicadas for a moment, and she realizes that the livestock sign is not so odd after all. Even after the three or four years she’s been in Wyoming, there are still things about this place to learn before she can really feel she belongs.

While she’s managed to find her way through the customs and culture here well enough with help from people like Ruby and Henry and even Walt, all more than willing to act as guides, she still straddles the gap between big city and high plains small town. It’s moments like these that she misses the familiarity of concrete under her feet and the in-your-face culture of close family so bad she aches. And while at the moment she can easily drop things and head back home for a visit, it’s not going to be that simple much longer. Having this child will cement her firmly in one world or the other, wherever she decides to stay.

She uses up the last of her spare change at the vending machine to stock up on bottled water and snacks, even though she’s less than an hour from home. It’s mostly for distraction anyhow, something to keep her mind from drifting too far and her eyes on the road. She’s thankful it’s not winter and she doesn’t have to contend with ice and blowing snow, the one thing about this state she absolutely despises. It occurs to her at that moment that this will likely be a winter baby, or early spring, which in Wyoming, she’s discovered, is pretty much one in the same.

Leaving the rest stop behind, she heads north again. She passes another sign with a friendly reminder to ‘buckle up for safety’. She tries to imagine herself wrangling baby seats and winter gear and has a moment of panic as she wonders how the hell is she ever going to protect a tiny baby from hypothermia when she spends half the year layering thermal shirts and wool socks herself ? At least back in Philly there was little danger of freezing to death if your car broke down in the middle of nowhere.

Because back home there’s such a thing as public transportation. And no middle of nowhere.

She grips the steering wheel tighter as she pulls back onto I-25. Yesterday’s feeling of lightness is dissipating the closer she gets to Durant.

*

The wreck is visible from across the interstate. Half off the shoulder with the windshield caved in, the faded blue late model Cavalier with mismatched doors looks like it had been dumped on the side of the road, not driven there. Off duty, which is only a technicality on the schedule in a small department like theirs, she flips on the radio and calls it in while keeping her eye out for the service vehicle road so she can cut across to the south-bound lanes.

It’s another five and a half miles back to the car, but she makes it in under three minutes with lights flashing. She notes down the South Dakota plates as she pulls up behind the car. She can see an arm hanging out of the driver’s side window. Picking up the radio again, she calls in an update and requests an ambulance as a precaution, knowing it’ll take a good thirty minutes for it to get here from Durant

Her duffle bag is in the back seat and she spares a moment to grab her badge and her gun; the badge for identification since she’s out of uniform, and the gun because while there’s no reason at the moment to think this is nothing but a car accident, she also doesn’t want to find herself bleeding out in the gravel if it’s something else. She approaches the car careful to keep the driver in her sights and calls out to identify herself.

No response from the car.

Once she’s level with the driver’s door, she can see why. The young woman had been pinned in her seat by the steering column when the dash collapsed. Her dark hair is matted with safety glass and blood. Her eyes are closed but at least Vic can see that the woman is still breathing.

“Miss? There’s an ambulance on its way, okay?” Vic says in case the woman can hear her. She takes a quick look in the back windows, checking for passengers. The back seat is crammed tight with cardboard boxes and plastic bags, some with the contents spilling out: clothes mostly, a few personal effects like a photo album and a hair brush are scattered about. It looks like the woman had packed up house and left in a hurry.

“Can you tell me where you’re hurt?” The woman in the car rolls her head toward the open window. It takes a few tries before her eyes stay open, but eventually they fix on Vic.

The woman blinks once more, then swallows. Her voice is tight and it looks like speaking costs her. “Did you find the deer? Is it dead?” Her eyes slip shut again.

Vic checks around the front of the car, but doesn't find anything but blood and tufts of fur. Given the damage to the car, she’s not sure she wants to find the other party. “No deer,” she shouts as she rounds the car. The “Thank god,” she keeps to herself.

She tries the door handle. It moves, but the door itself is stuck. She reaches in the open window to unlock it, but the door isn’t locked. Looking up the length of the car, she can see where the body panels have crumbled and pushed in. The door is frame is too bent to open. “Look, the door is jammed.” Unsure if she’d being heard, she keeps talking in case the woman is conscious. She doesn’t want to scare her in her disoriented state. “I’m going to go around the other side and try the passenger door, okay?”

“K…” Vic doesn’t expect the weak response, but it’s a hopeful sign.

On the other side of the car, she finds the deer. Just off in the tall grass of the ditch, neck twisted unnaturally. Vic is relieved that it’s one less thing to deal with. She shakes her head as she rounds the back of the car and tries to focus again on the accident scene. Thankfully, the passenger door opens easily.

Vic crawls into the passenger seat. It’s a tight fit under the crushed windshield, but she manages to wedge herself inside. “I found the deer.” From this angle, she’s got a better view of the woman and her potential injuries. “Okay.” She says it more to herself, going through a mental checklist of the next steps. “Miss? My name’s Deputy Moretti. Is it okay if I check you over to see where you’ve been hurt?”

The woman tries to nod but her face tightens in pain. She licks her lips again. “I got a headache.”

“I’ll bet you do.” Vic runs through the ABC’s - airway, breathing, and circulation while she tries to keep up a one-sided conversation to gauge the woman’s level of consciousness. “So are you visiting from North Dakota, miss, or just passing through?”

“Just Jamie.” The woman’s eyes are open now, tracking Vic as she leans under the ruined dash to check for breaks or blood. “Jamie Saulteaux.” 

Vic straightens up. “Nice to meet you Jamie. Can you wiggle your feet for me?”

Jamie nods slowly and rotates her ankles a couple of times. “How’s my daughter? She was crying before. I don’t hear her now. Did you get her out?”

Vic’s stomach drops. She hasn’t heard any crying. Horrified she’d missed a second passenger, she tries to angle around in the cramped space to get a better look at the back seat. There’s nothing back there but the bags and boxes.

The two doors of the coupe makes accessing the back seat is awkward at the best of times. It's even worse when the front seat slide is jammed. Vic manages to get the seat back flipped forward and starts lifting the plastic bags out, piling them on the shoulder beside the car. She works quickly but carefully, afraid of what she might find. Her heart is racing by the time she uncovers the baby seat, and it's takes all her professionalism not to let slip a prayer out loud.

The baby seat had done its job and protected the child from the impact, but the shifting cargo had loosely buried it. Vic manages to make enough space that she can slip in beside the rear-facing seat.

Dark eyes stare back at her for a surprised moment, before dissolving into tears. Jamie turns in her seat, but cries out in pain, pinned too tight to move. 

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Vic tries to sooth the child, who is getting more panicked by the second now that she’s recognized her mother’s voice.

The child is probably safer where she is at the moment; there’s no telling if she was injured in the crash, but her cries are taking on a frantic tone and she’s straining against the restraints. Against her better judgement, Vic releases the straps on the car seat. She eases the baby out of the car and climbs back in the front seat, turning the baby so she can see Jamie. “Here you go. There’s your mom. See?”

Jamie winces as she reaches out to stroke the girl’s arm. “Hey little nut. You scared mama.” The cries subside to deep sobs before they taper out.

“How old?” Vic asks to make conversation. She’s not sure how long has passed since she called in the accident, but there’s still no sign of the ambulance and she can see Jamie’s eyes start to close again. The baby seems content enough for the moment lying across Vic’s lap with her eyes trained on Jamie, making sure her mother doesn't disappear on her again.

Jamie’s head rolls toward her. “Almost three months.” Her thumb makes long sweeps up and down the baby’s bare calf. “My boyfriend took off with my best friend, so we were coming to live with my aunt until I can figure something out. Rosie was crying. I didn’t even see the deer.” Tears run down her cheek. “I guess the car is totalled, huh? Everything I have is in here.”

“We can call your aunt from the hospital and let her know what happened. I'll make sure they take good care of your car until you can get your stuff.” On her lap, Rosie starts to cry again, a different tone this time. She arches her back, trying to fling her small body in the direction of her mother. Unsure of what to do, Vic gathers her up to her shoulder like she remembers her mother doing with her younger brother. It seems to do the trick for the moment. Rosie nestles her head into Vic’s neck. A small hand grabs a fistful of her hair. She feels a small, warm mouth nudge against her throat.

When she doesn't find what she’s looking for, Rosie's lets out a wail of outrage. Vic tries rubbing her back, but it seems to only make her angrier. Her voice is incredibly loud in the confines of the car. Vic hasn't any doubt about how Jamie might have been distracted enough to not see the deer.

“She’s starving. I should’ve fed her ages ago.” Jamie lifts her arms to reach for the baby, but her face twists and she cries out. Rosie's cries increase in tandem.

“I don't know what to do. I’m sorry.” Vic says it more to Rosie, though she’s open to any suggestion at this point.

“There’s a bottle in her bag. I don't know where it went.” Jamie tries to wave in the direction of the passenger footwell, but even that looks painful. “I don't know if she’ll take it. She hates it. She always screams at my boyfriend when I have to leave her to go to work.”

The bag, it turns out, did not go far. It takes some minor contortionism just to feel around under the collapsed dash with a flailing baby cradled against her, but Vic manages to locate the bag and the bottle with one hand. Jamie’s eye have slipped closed again. By the time she gets the cap off the bottle, Vic feels like crying herself. “Jamie?” She has to raise her voice over Rosie’s. “You gotta walk me through this. I’ve never done this before.”

There’s no answer from Jamie and no ambulance in sight. “Come on. Where the hell are you guys?” She can’t see her watch, but surely it’s been longer than half an hour since she’d called in the accident?

She manages to get Rosie turned around again and settled in the crook of her arm so she doesn't feel like the baby is going to squirt out of her arms like an eel. The first time the bottle touches Rosie’s mouth, she pulls away, wailing at the betrayal. Eventually either hunger, or Vic pleading with her wins out and she latches on greedily, all the while side-eyeing Vic as if she were trying to let her know that this is only a compromise.

Vic can hear sirens in the distance. Moments later there’s a knock on the roof. Vic looks up from Rosie with a start. Between the debris blocking the back window and the damage to the rest of the car, she hadn’t seen the highway patrolman pull up.

“Moretti?”

“Hey Chuck.”

“EMT’s are about a minute out. Everything under control here?” He leans forward through the driver’s side window to get a better look inside the vehicle. “Is she…?” He nods at Jamie.

“She was talking until a few minutes ago.” Jamie’s eyelids flutter and close again at the sound of the new voice.

The ambulance cuts the sirens as it pulls up alongside the wreck. Vic spends the next half hour holding Rosie and narrating a play-by-play to her from the back step of the ambulance while members of the volunteer fire department cut the driver’s door off so they can extract Jamie.

When they load the gurney into the ambulance, she tries to hand the baby off to the EMT, but Rosie gears up with another round of wailing and refuses to be parted from her temporary guardian. General consensus is that it’ll be less traumatic all around for Vic to ride along in the ambulance back to Durant. She makes Chuck promise to load all Jamie’s belongings into the box of her truck. She’ll take care of them herself until they locate family and help get Jaimie resettled. It's not much, but it wasn't too long ago that she’d stuffed her own life into boxes and piled them in the back Walt’s Bronco.

*

Chuck offers her a ride back to the accident scene to pick up her truck. If he notices that she’s quiet, he doesn’t say anything except, “Tough one?” 

She looks up from watching the road. “Hmm?”

“The girl and the kid.” He glances across the front seat at Vic. “Sometimes it doesn’t have to be a messy one to hit a little close to home. I’ve got almost thirty-five years of service in and I’ve seen that look you were wearing in the rear view mirror myself a time or two .”

Vic pulls herself up in the seat. She’s crossed paths with Chuck working a few accidents with the HPs, but she doesn’t know him well enough to entertain his scrutiny. “You ever get the feeling the universe is trying to tell you something?” she asks instead.

Chuck pulls up behind her truck, puts the cruiser in park, and flips on the lightbar out of habit. He rubs a hand across his face, smoothing out the salt-and-pepper Tom Selleck mustache that went out of style when Vic was still in high school. He nods slowly. “Sometimes maybe it is. Maybe we’re all just one wrong choice away from a wreck on a lonely stretch of road.”

Vic sighs loudly because it’s like Chuck was reading her mind. It's not hard to picture herself in Jamie’s shoes. “God, that’s depressing.”

“Depressing job sometimes.” He says it so matter-of-factly that it reminds her of the kid she met yesterday in Cheyenne.

She turns to look at him in the fading light and notices that he wears the years well, despite the stress of the job and the long hours. “So thirty-five years huh? How’d you make it this long?”

“Luck?” he laughs. “That, and having somebody at home who understands the job.”

Vic nods. “My ex was not that person.”

“Wouldn’t be the first.” Then he adds, “No shame in a career change either, though. Lots of women go into law enforcement and then decide when it comes time to start a family that they want something safer. Better hours.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.” Vic grabs her daypack from the floor and pulls on the door handle. She suspects he means well, but it’s not the first time it’s been implied to her that her place was behind a desk. “In spite of all that shit, I still love this job.” She closes the door more firmly than she’d intended, then leans in through the open window. “Thanks for the ride.” She knocks twice on the roof of the cruiser and makes her way to her truck.

In her rearview mirror she sees Chuck waiting until she pulls out before turning off his lightbar. She backtracks south along the interstate until she’s sure she’s at the edge of Chuck’s sight, then illegally cuts through the median ditch in four-wheel drive because she’s feeling contentious.

*

It’s after dark when she finally pulls into her parking spot beside the motor home. She sits behind the wheel with her eyes closed and listens to the engine tick as it cools down, too tired to move. She’s not sure if it’s the pregnancy or the unexpected long day, or some combination of the two, but her whole body feels leaden. Headlights play across the truck interior as one of the other park residents drives past. Eventually she works up the will to grab her gear and lock up the truck.

It takes her a moment to notice, but somebody has been in the motor home while she was away. There’s a jar of peanut butter she doesn’t remember buying, and a loaf of bread sitting on her small kitchen counter. She drops her bag on the sofa and checks the door lock for damage.

None.

And yet she’s certain she’d locked up before she left for Douglas. She’d used her key again just now to open the door.

She approaches the loaf of bread warily, as if it might explode at the slightest provocation. When nothing happens, she gives the loaf a squeeze. 

Fresh.

She picks it up and checks the bread tie. The pack date says yesterday. She frowns, then spins off the lid on the peanut butter. The foil seal is still intact, the smell of roasted peanuts strong and fresh.

Her mouth starts to water and her stomach does that annoying flip-flop thing where it can't decide if it's hungry or repulsed. She hopes for the former as she pulls open the silverware drawer and reaches for a knife with one hand, digging into the bread bag with the other. Her attention split, she can't find a knife because the narrow drawer is a mess. She grabs a handful of silverware and drops it in the sink, grabbing the first butter knife she spots in the pile.

Three bites into the sandwich and she can't remember peanut butter and white bread ever tasting this good. That’s when the note catches her eye.

She’d missed it, stuck under the edge of the peanut butter jar. A white index card and blocky print, a twin to another she knows she’s seen recently. She pulls out the silverware drawer again, but doesn't find what she’s looking for. She reaches in as far as her arm will go, but it's not there. Then she sees it, stuck between fork tines in the pile in the sink.

Travis’ babysitting coupon.

She plucks it from the sink and lays it down next to the new note. It doesn't take a forensic specialist to see that it's the same handwriting.

She takes another bite of the sandwich and picks up the new note.

_‘Didn't know when you will be back but thought you could use dinner._

_Ps: fixed the broken latch on the window_

_Ps part 2: milk in fridge’_

Sure enough, there’s a quart of milk on the top shelf of the fridge. There’s also a stack of chocolate pudding cups she knows for certain were not there before. Dessert, she assumes, not bothering to suppress a smile.

She makes a second sandwich, savoring this one as she walks the length of the motor home, inspecting each of the window latches until she finds the one that was repaired. It’s the one by the door, which explains how Travis had gotten in in the first place; the window is big enough that somebody could reach through and unlock the door. The pieces of baling twine that had come with the motor home were gone, replaced by a shiny new latch and lock. She hadn’t even noticed that it had been broken in the first place and wonders when Travis had.

She should be concerned that Travis had let himself in without asking, but at the same time she’s oddly touched. Maybe her perception is a bit skewed by experience, but he could have made this whole situation difficult. It would have been so easy to use that night, the one she’d made him agree to forget, against her.

Not like it hadn’t happened before; after all, she’d had a promising career, once.

She sprawls on the sofa with the last half on her sandwich, not bothering to kick off her boots. Not like there’s anybody to lecture her about it anyhow. 

Once upon a time, back when being the only daughter had earned her the privilege of an un-shared bedroom, she’d found herself cornered in the basement laundry sink by her mother. She’d been young - sixth, maybe seventh grade at the time, old enough to know better than to pick fights at recess, but not wise enough to realize that running at the mouth was the reason for the fight in the first place. She’d ended it before the bell had rung with the only proof she’d even been involved was a swollen lip and blood on her shirt. It was the shirt that she’d been rinsing when her mother had startled her.

“Cold water for blood stains, Victoria.”

She doesn't remember all the details of the conversation, but she does remember the narrow-eyed scrutiny of her mother and the interrogation room tactics that would have put her father-the-detective to shame. She also remembers how her mother had doubted the abridged truth about the fight, preferring to believe her only daughter had been up to something far more dangerous for a young women.

“You need to be careful, Victoria,” her mother had stressed. “Boys after a certain age are only interested in one thing.”

“What? Getting their asses kicked for picking on fourth graders?”

It had been at that point her mother crossed her arms and given Vic The Look. The one that said ‘now would be a very good time to not open your mouth’.

“I know you’re a smart girl, too smart some days, and I know I don't need to explain sex to you, Victoria.” She’d paused here, either for effect, or to make sure Vic was actually been paying attention, and not standing at the sink rolling her eyes when she thought her mother couldn’t see. “You need to be very careful. Because if something happens, don't count on him sticking around.”

She remembers the heat of her mother’s stare at this point and the flush of embarrassment burning her ears, though to this day she can only guess it's because her mother had refused to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“I've raised five babies already. I don't need to raise another.” And with that, her mother had dumped the basket of laundry she’d been carrying into the washer and closed the lid with a finality that meant the end of the discussion before turning on her heel and returning upstairs.

It was probably the one lecture from her youth that had actually stuck, likely because it was the only time she wasn’t asking forgiveness for something already done. She’d been so careful, even when she’d been married and Sean had been pushing the idea of starting a family so there’d be an excuse to quit her job. She’s still not sure how she’d managed to fuck up, or how she’ll explain it when she does finally tell her family. Her face feels flushed with that old shame, even though she’s a grown woman with nothing to apologize for.

The air inside the motorhome is suddenly stifling. Her daypack is still sitting by the door on top of her jacket; Vic grabs both, and a couple of pudding cups from the fridge on her way past. She lets the door slam behind her while she takes in great gulps of the cool night air.

She doesn’t really have a destination in mind; she’s spent so much time on the road already today that she really doesn’t want to actually go anywhere. It’s just a restlessness, like an itch between her shoulder blades that she can’t quite reach.

Fortunately, the trailer park is laid out in a series of loops and bays. There’s miles of asphalt to walk without really going anywhere. She follow her own street to the next, then the next, walking until she runs out of streetlights and all she can see is the glow of Durant against the crisp pinpoints of stars across the field. She stands there with her arms wrapped around herself, the thud of her pulse in her ears the only sound out here in all this lonely empty space.

And maybe that’s the crux of it? Maybe it’s not about whether or not she’s capable of something resembling a normal life with a kid. Maybe it’s not about the job and being afraid of it changing.

Maybe, exactly as her mother had promised, she’s been impulsive and careless and now she’s going to end up raising this child by herself? It hardly seems fair to the kid.

The night has cooled off significantly and as she shoves her hands into her jacket pockets, she rediscovers the pudding cups she’d stashed on her way out the door. Unexpected, like everything else in her life at the moment. Travis deciding to play by different rules, giving her the time and space she’d told him she needed while still keeping to his own promise to look out for her is the antithesis of what she’d been brought up to believe would happen.

She’s almost afraid to trust in it.

*

Vic’s sitting outside on her picnic table when Travis’ car pulls into his parking spot down the street. A part of her is tempted to sneak inside and turn off the lights before he notices she’s there, avoid any sort of confrontation or meaningful conversation with him tonight.

The other part of her tells herself to grow the fuck up, in those exact words.

She watches him get out of the car and waits for him to turn in her direction. When he does, she waves. Even from down the street, she can see him hesitate, and it surprises her. But then, she’s never been the one to seek him out. She holds up one of the pudding cups, hoping he can see what she’s offering in the haphazard light from the park’s streetlights.

Travis pulls on a sweatshirt, straightens his ball cap, and wanders over, hands stuffed deep in his pockets. When he’s close enough, Vic tosses him the pudding cup. He catches it against his chest and crosses the distance to sit beside her on the picnic table.

“Hey.” She hands him one of the spoons. “Thanks for dinner.”

He nods. “You just get back?”

“About an hour ago.” She peels the top off her own cup, making sure to salvage the pudding stuck to the foil.

Travis turns to study her. “That’s late. Everything okay?”

“Still pregnant,” she tells him, maybe a little more flippant than she’d intended.

“Okay good.” He looks away, then bobs his head a couple of times. “I mean, good, if that’s what you want. If...if you want to have this kid.” His voice catches a little at the end.

That stops her cold. “Were you...did you think I went to Cheyenne because I was going to see about an abortion?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” He studies the pudding cup, still unopened in his hands. “When we were at the baby doctor’s, you looked so freaked out. Then when you said you’d be gone for the weekend…” He looks back up at her again. “It crossed my mind, okay?”

“Oh Travis.” She reaches out without thinking and slides her hand over his. “No, I really did just need some space to wrap my head around this.”

Travis blows out a long breath. “And?”

“And I think I'm a little less freaked out?” She pulls her hand back so she can take a spoonful of pudding. Vic notices the way his forehead bunches again, the way he watches her out of the corner of his eye when he’s worried. It occurs to her now that she’s only been considering what having this child means for herself. She’d completely ignored how upset Travis had been when he’d thought she wasn’t going to tell him. She hesitates, trying to figure how to say what she needs to next, how not to hurt Travis more.

When the spoonful of pudding is gone and she still hasn't found the right words, she blurts out, “Travis, what if it's not yours?”

“Vic, I told you before, I’ll be around for you no matter how this plays out.”

“I know, and don't get me wrong, I appreciate it. I do, but,” she pauses. It would be so easy to just drop it, leave the conversation here and hope for the best. Figure things out as they go along. But then she remembers a conversation with Walt, one sided on her part, about her messing up every relationship she’s been in. Only it's not just about her this time; the stakes are so much higher. “What if the other guy turns out to be the father? What’s going to happen then? Are you still going to want to be involved?”

Travis rubs a hand over his face. “Are you planning on telling this other dude?”

“I don't know. Probably not, unless I knew for sure.” She dips her spoon in the pudding.

“If you don't plan on telling him, then I don't want to know it's not mine, even if you want to find out.” He rips the top off his pudding so fast that it tears down the middle, leaving him to pick at the strands of foil. “Being a father is more than just making the kid, okay?” There’s a note of anger in his words and he takes a deep breath. “Sorry. That wasn’t meant to be at you.”

“It’s okay. I get it.” She’s starting to understand Mrs. Murphy’s overprotective streak toward her son. She watches Travis stab at his own pudding cup. She hates to keep pushing, but there’s still some things they need to settle up front if she’s going to let him get any more invested. “Travis, I don’t want to marry you.”

He looks at her, spoon in the corner of his mouth. “Okay.”

Not what she’d expected. “Just okay?” 

“Okay, I won’t ask you to marry me?”

“Travis.” She shakes her head. How many of their conversations were going to end up being this circular? “You don’t need to answer in the form of a sentence. This isn’t a high school English exam.”

“Vic.” He sits up straight and puts the pudding cup aside. “My mom raised me by herself. My dad was gone before I could remember him, and my mom made sure that’s the only thing I ever knew about him. If there’s anybody who knows how not to be an asshole about this, I’m probably that guy.” He gets up and starts to pace. She can see the years of hurt and frustration he’s been hiding under his rodeo cowboy persona starting to bleed through.

Travis looks over his shoulder, but there’s nobody around. The neighbors have all gone to bed. He lowers his voice a fraction anyhow. “If you don’t want to get married, that’s okay. It’s not the end of the world these days. If you want this kid to be a Moretti and not a Murphy, I can live with that. If you want me to come to your appointments, I’ll do that. If you want me to take him to school and get up early to watch cartoons with him on Saturdays so you can sleep in, I’ll do that too.” He stops in front of her and shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, trying to contain that manic energy of his. “Whatever you need Vic, however you want to do this, I’m going to be there for you and for our kid. This is the one thing in my life I’m not going to screw up.”

Vic can feel the tears prickling her eyes and swallows hard, as if that will keep them back. She swipes at the corner of her eye with the heel of her hand, not sure what will happen if she tries to speak right now. His declaration is so much more than she’d expected. As far as impulsive decisions go, this might not end up being her worst.

Travis watches from a safe distance. “Say something?”

She sniffs and reaches for her day pack. “Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Give me your phone.” She holds out her hand, palm up and waiting.

Travis reaches into his back pocket and hands her his cell phone, swiping to unlock it first. Vic finds the camera app and waits for the display to come into focus, then she lines it up with the photo she’d just pulled from her daypack and takes a picture. It’s a little grainy even with the flash, but close enough for a copy.

Travis sits back down on the picnic table beside her. “What are you doing?” She hands him back his phone with the photo of the sonogram on the screen. It takes a moment to register what the picture is, but when he does, the corner of his mouth lifts just a bit, tentatively as if he’s not ready to trust what’s she’s just given him. He taps the screen to zoom in, then looks back up at her to be sure.

“So we’re having a kid?”

She laughs, because it’s either that, or cry right now. She wipes at the corner of her eye again to be sure.

“Yeah, I guess we are.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- I'm not sure where canon is going to take this particular storyline, but I wanted to see Vic's arc in its own context.
> 
> \- this still feels unfinished, but I'm posting it anyhow, otherwise it'll just get picked at endlessly. Time to set it free for better or worse.


End file.
